Bigger than the King Ranch
January 11, 1999
“There’s a wildlife refuge on our way; wanna stop there?” Pat asked.
“Sure,” I replied. “We have plenty of time. What can we expect to see?”
“Well, we have a chance to see a Prairie Falcon” my navigator/brochure-reader replied.
I was convinced. We had been looking to find our first Prairie Falcon through much of the last year as we traveled through Alberta, Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. Birds that we thought might be Prairie Falcons either were too far away or flew too fast for a positive identification. We had been skunked! Now was our chance to finally see this elusive bird.
The Maxwell National Wildlife Refuge is just a few miles off of I-25 south of Raton, NM. After parking the motorhome in a parking lot where a sign read “Area closed to the public,” we drove the Honda to the refuge headquarters. The refuge is not exactly a tourist mecca – only one other visitor had signed the registry that day. “We would like to see a Prairie Falcon,” I told Jerry French, the refuge manager who met us.
“Sorry,” he said. “Prairie Falcons left for warmer climates a few weeks ago. But look out on the ice of Lake 12. Those two large black spots are bald eagles and that is a female Northern Harrier flying by. Unfortunately, Lake 12 is closed to the public, but Lake 13 is open and you can see lots of birds there. Eagles congregate here every winter. How they communicate with each other, I don’t know. But they seem to all show up at once. The attraction on these playa lakes during the winter is coots. As the lakes freeze over, the areas of open water become smaller and smaller. Coots require a long run on the water to take off. These small areas of open water are sometimes too small for coots to become airborne. Bald eagles take advantage of this fact and are able to catch the coots fairly easily. It is like eating chips out of a bowl.”
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| Trapped Coots |
And sure enough, there were plenty of eagles on and between the three lakes of the preserve. Before the day was over, we counted 18 adults and immatures. Some of the eagles were standing on the ice eating something. Several ravens surrounded each feeding eagle, ready to snatch a bite of the eagle crumbs. Not wanting to spook the birds, we edged closer slowly to obtain a better view through our binoculars. I really wanted to see the eagle strategy – how they attack and kill an icebound American Coot. But these eagles were very wary of humans, and apparently detected our movements with their eagle eyes. They suddenly flew away to some neighboring trees where they could keep an eye on us. After the eagles had flown, we could see little harm in moving closer to the area where the eagles had been feeding. Nearby there was a small area of open water containing about 50 very nervous coots. They would swim to the edge of the open water and a few would climb out on the ice. Then they would quickly jump back into the water. They performed this ritual several times until suddenly one brave coot decided the “coast was clear” and took off across the ice -- maybe one hundred yards -- to a larger area of open water. Now, most of the other coots and one stray Canada Goose decided to follow. Their feet slipped on the ice as they flapped their wings. They moved fairly rapidly, but could not gain enough speed to become airborne. They would have been “sitting ducks” for the eagles when out on the ice. Not able to fly or dive, their movements were one dimensional and posed easy game for eagles. But the eagles would not attack because we were too close. Unwittingly, we had interfered in a natural process of predation and had allowed these coots, and the Canada Goose -- who seemed to think he was a coot -- to escape the eagle trap. Our consciences were salved somewhat by the fact that about 10 coots were too “chicken” to brave the ice and remained in the eagle trap, where some of them would likely become eagle breakfast tomorrow. The others had made it to the relative safety of more open water, where their defensive strategies could include either diving or flying to escape the sharp claws and beaks of hungry eagles.
On the nearby ice, we could see several areas colored grey with coot feathers and the red of their spilled blood. Although we are not eagle experts, the eagles in this refuge appeared to be particularly well satiated.
Coots are not favorite game birds for duck hunters, so few tears are wasted when eagles eat a few of them. However, if eagles were as successful against mallards, pintails or shovelers, duck hunter associations might lobby to have the eagles “removed.”
Bald Eagles also congregate on Maxwell’s lakes to feast on released Rainbow Trout which are uneducated about the threat of hungry eagles. As many as 62 eagles have been counted at one time.
The Maxwell Wildlife Refuge is part of the chain of 2,996 Waterfowl Protection Areas in the USA. Most are located in the pothole areas of the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Montana. The purchase of duck stamps by duck hunters provide much of the funding for the purchase and maintenance of these areas. But superficially, it would seem that the managers of such areas face a dilemma. What is more important, the protection of all wildlife on the refuge or the production of ducks? In one sense, these wildlife refuges function as duck farms for duck hunters. Certainly, these refuges have played a very important role in the conservation of ducks in the USA. However, one can only imagine the pressure that is likely exerted on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to produce more and more ducks for hunters. Production of duck meat for diurnal raptors such as eagles might not be viewed by duck and goose hunters as a legitimate objective of these refuges.
Employees of Maxwell Wildlife Refuge are not just policemen who protect game animals from poachers. They are also farmers. Corn is grown on the refuge for migrating and resident waterfowl. We observed about 150 sandhill cranes, a few jillion geese and various ducks feeding in the corn fields that had been planted, irrigated and maintained by refuge employees. Volunteers do not play a big role here – “they prefer not to sit on a dusty tractor,” claimed Jerry French.
Perhaps one of the most interesting aspects of the Maxwell Refuge is the history associated with its name. The refuge land was once part of a single ranch that contained 1,714,764 acres – larger than the King Ranch in Texas -- and was owned by Lucien Maxwell. Lucien was an Indian trader, mountain man, and scout who married Luz, the daughter of Charles Beaubien.-- who just happened to be half owner of about 2,680 square miles of a Mexican Land Grant. When an Indian uprising in Taos killed Beaubien’s business partner, the duties of administering the Beaubien-Mirenda Land Grant fell to Lucien Maxwell. Maxwell sold beef and grain to the Indian Agency at Cimarron. He also provided Fort Union with goods and supplied small towns throughout the area. In 1869 he made $87,000 from his gold mining interests alone. By then he had acquired much of the original land grant for which he paid about $40,000. He built a huge, lavish home, beat his Mexican workers, raced horses, gambled, warred with squatters and ruled his kingdom. This kingdom ranged from the10,000 foot peaks of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains in the west across the Canadian River to the east. The northern boundary edged into Colorado, and the southern boundary reached almost halfway to the latitude of Santa Fe. It roughly covered the entire area of present-day Colfax County. He grew sugar beets, wheat, and stock of every description. It is claimed that at one time he owned more than 100,000 head of sheep and cattle and had about one thousand tenants working for him. In 1870, he sold the Maxwell kingdom for $1.35 million to some Englishmen who began to sell it off in parcels.
Interestingly, Ted Turner of CNN fame now owns a little (480,000 acres) piece of Maxwell’s old kingdom. The national park folks were interested in buying this land back in the 1970's until they found that the asking price was about $26 million. A biological inventory revealed that this property – The Vermejo Ranch – was home to 7,000 elks, 40,000 deer, 300 pronghorns, many black bears, grouse, quail, doves, ducks, eagles, hawks, owls, rabbits, squirrels, chipmunks, prairie dogs, frogs and other animals. Now it serves the pleasures of Ted Turner and Jane Fonda.
Now maybe we can understand why the wildlife refuge, close to the town of Maxwell, was given the Maxwell name. It seems only natural to name it after the man who had owned the whole area. But is there some danger that it will someday be renamed the Ted Turner Refuge?
Anyway, where it was once necessary to build platforms in fields as a means of protecting workers from grizzlies, and where wolves ran in large packs, there is now a tranquil wildlife refuge – no longer inhabited by wolves and grizzlies. A place where Bald Eagles eat coots on cold winter days.
As we prepared to leave, I suggested that Pat drive the Honda separately from the motorhome so that it would not get covered with dust as we pulled it behind the motorhome. “The keys are in the ignition,” I said. I pulled onto the gravel road and watched for more birds as I drove a mile or so to our rendezvous site by the paved highway. I looked in the rearview mirror and there was no Pat. “Something is wrong,” I thought to myself. I turned the motorhome around and headed back in time to see Pat jogging over the crest of a hill toward me.
“The keys were in the car OK,” she exclaimed breathlessly. “But you inadvertently locked the door. I waved and waved, but you never looked back.”
Although this one silly act marred our otherwise perfect day, we both took it in stride and enjoyed the late afternoon drive to our RV park in the chilly town of Raton. Wonder why Ted Turner did not to buy Raton too. Lucien would have.
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